Black Sakura
by Heliosion
Summary: The darkness hides a lot. Secrets, lies... The things you wish you hadn't done. For Negi Springfield, shadow master the world has just brightened up to clue him on what he has been missing. Join him on his journey
1. Chapter 1

"Neo Negima"

"Black Sakura"

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 1: When The Last Petal Falls

Disclaimer: If I freaking owned Negima I would also have created Love Hina and if that were the case Mutsumi would have been with Keitaro. I may be a masochist but come on! At least Mutsumi was gorgeous!

**Member of "Otaku Town"**

XreviewX

The perfect blue of the endless ocean glistened like a field of diamonds. The sun kissed white sandy beach for all the people could see packed by the masses for the glorious weekend of frolicking planned. The mountains with the carpet of green pine trees with the beautiful background of Mt. Ojigadake made the Shibukawa beach resort a most breathtaking sight to take in a vacation.

It had everything for a guy such as himself. It had the soft sounds of rippling tides caressing the beach, the smell of fresh ramen from the shack across the way and the hyper attitudes of people his age wanting to just have fun. The electric atmosphere made getting excited about being on the beach easy and the will to do anything constructive like studying fade into the azure sky and orange sun that beat down generously its maize coloured rays down upon the land. He had the cool shade of the beach umbrella and the padded sun lounger for him to just wile away his day from those exams he was sure to have aced.

The teenagers cracked open a satisfied eye and admired the many women passing through in their bikinis or those soaking wet from playing in the water or…

Yeah life was fucking good right now. He should buy his godmother who was paying for all this with the old guys a nice present. The perfect marks for his exams should cover what the old men would want from all this. It was their idea to give the group this trip as an award after all.

"Negi-chan," a soft girl's voice asked innocently. It was her trademark after all.

Negi turned onto his side, wriggling his ass to straighten out his black trunks. He was facing a blue sports umbrella they had brought from home where lying on her side casually was his oldest friend Konoe Konoka. Now she was _really_ totally innocent and naïve, like she had been in a coma since birth and only woke up yesterday not knowing anything but she had this tenacity to come off as the complete opposite by complete accident like fate loved being ironic.

Like now with one hand running through her shiny black hair, making her eyes when closed come off as coy and setting off what men called the come hither look. She had her other slender arm arched behind her back to accidently emphasise her white bikini clad body and her well toned hour glass figure. She may have lack certain assets that would get the school girl noticed instantly to anyone like his godmother (when she wore a bikini it was like she was wearing a siren and a marching band was following her from behind) but his best friend still made an alluring figure if the groups of lecherous men watching her were anything to go by.

Negi remembering his duties made a face and held back a snarl that sent the men packing. Well the killing intent kind of worked too and the flex of his six pack stomach he had been working on all year at the gym or training with his friends added the killing blow to their less than honourable intentions. The teenager had promised Setsuna, the ever watchful bodyguard on her break that he, the super mage (the mutt's words not his) would keep an eye out for her charge while the swordswoman had a turn in the ocean to play with his auntie.

"What is it Konoka-ojou-sama," Negi teased, winking at her when she scrunched her nose and her cheeks reddened. If you wanted one way to tease the nigh unflappable girl you used the suffix she hated most.

"Negi-chan," she retaliated well that was what she called him anyway with no hint of teasing. She just didn't get the message that using chan on someone who had killed a man was kind of demeaning. Not that she knew the red haired mage had ever killed a man of course. "Do you know where the others are?"

"Setsuna is playing with oba-chan," Negi pointed out, using his finger for Konoka to look out into the crowded shallow water of the ocean. His poor long distance vision could just make out his red haired aunt and her dark haired counterpart throwing a ball around with people hovering around still. That wouldn't last long if his aunt started noticing men were watching. Ever since she got dumped by her boyfriend last year she was very volatile to guys trying their luck. "And as for nee-chan, Gateau-oji-san, Takamichi and the old lady, I think they went drinking somewhere. Probably the bar back at the hotel."

"What about Kotaro-kun and Natsu-chan?" Konoka asked, opening a bottle of sun block and smearing it on her body that started to herd the weirdo population towards her location again.

Negi scratched his head. When was the last time he had seen the pair? It had been two days of the teen mage kicking back and relaxing with a cold drink, sunbathing and checking out the women whilst trying to build up the courage to ask one out. It was hard to remember with all the time spent plotting time to get on his lonesome to look around to remember where exactly the hound had last made an appearance. It was hard to flirt when your nee-chan every time she got within two hundred metres of you tried to pamper you like you was five years old or something.

"I guess maybe at the hotel?" Negi shrugged, wincing at the cold slender metallic gold choker around his neck chilling his collarbone. It was something his mother had given him as a small child even if he couldn't remember his time with his Otou-sama and Okaa-sama anymore or a time when he had taken it off. It was all he had left of them as far as he knew. The decorative inscription read something about a protective spell but he knew and had been told by Gateau-oji-san that it was only a symbolic defence with no actual magic in it. "This was a much a holiday for Natsu-chan after all that stuff with the lead in the play and trying to get that lazy dog to study for the exams."

The girl giggled like someone was playing a harp. The girl didn't even know she was making the sharks swarm around her _again_. Negi unleashed another blast of killing intent that sent shivers down the spines of any normal person and sent them scurrying back to the sea where they belonged.

"So it's just us then?" Konoka said, pouting. Although she tried to pout but it came off as usual rather innocently. He loved that side of his best friend and hoped she never changed.

"That a problem?" Negi japed, pulling out a pair of sunglasses from the top of his shaggy hair and slipping it on. He leaned back and relaxed. "At least I'm not trying to get you to cover up."

"I suppose," Konoka admitted, "Set-chan is way too conservative with her swimsuits. Why can't she be more like Asuna-chan?"

Negi on cue made a horrified groan like he had just seen something truly horrendous. "Oba-chan doesn't need to look sexy when I am around," Negi mumbled, closing his eyes again. He was going to try and get a little nap before going for a wander along the beach and hopefully he might find a girl who would let him hang out with her. And yeah the mutt would be cool staying where he is and not anywhere near any girls he tried to attract.

He had no idea how Natsu-chan put up with the horny hound dog. Natsu-chan was a strong woman who learned from the best in Yukihiro Ayaka, class president who seriously hated the dog boy for merely existing and sharing the same oxygen as Natsu-chan. It was anger that was kind of misdirected when the queen of class 3A should have been blaming Chizuru Naba, super hot girl of his class for introducing the normally shy girl to her chemistry class partner in the first place.

"She hates you calling her auntie," Konoka chided. The girl had to have finished up rubbing her sunscreen in since he heard her white lounger creak as she lay back to enjoy the shade.

"She is my auntie so I got the right to call her auntie," Negi retorted jokingly. "Calling my auntie by her first name?" Negi faked a shudder. "I didn't do it when we were five when she nagged me for six solid months about it and I sure ain't changing a habit of a lifetime anytime soon."

Negi breathed out deeply and rolled onto his opposite side into a relaxed foetal position. He took another deep breath in and just went still as a rock to feel the humidity on his tanning torso. He presumed Konoka was following suit as the little chatterbox said nothing more about anything for nearly an hour. As he relaxed his thoughts emptied like his training had taught him to and just being still was something he revelled in.

End of year exams was literally hell on earth and that was especially so for an honour student like him. The old men, the old lady godmother and the family plus friends expected him to be an instant success and on top of that he had to coordinate with the hound to be his private tutor so the dog boy actually scraped through with a pass. It had been so stressful Negi had almost started downing calming draughts spiked with pureed salamander tongues to stop him from exploding from the ambivalent stress and anxiety along with the anger of repeating himself a hundred times to a hound that treated algebra like it was written in Sanskrit.

The red haired mage finally had a chance to chill out and to alleviate the stress he had to undergo. He was not obsessed with studying par say. The teenaged mage worked hard with help from his natural talents in both magic and academics but it got to him at this point every year. The student was just like any other Japanese student under pressure.

"Hey babe," some guy drawled, "What is your name sweet thing?"

"_Do people really still talk like that?"_ Negi thought. He was sure the two blasts of killing intent would keep that invisible boundary he desired for all men to keep to and it was starting to grate on his nerves that he had to exert more effort to repel the annoyances. The teen opened an eye irately and it was exactly the same scenario as usual.

Was he getting obsessed with this security job? Or was it just really that he was just annoyed raw killing intent was not holding back a bunch of wet behind the ear idiots with rich parents? His rising sense of exasperation was at the moment too charged right now for Negi to care.

But it was the same old story. Be it if they were in school, on the streets, Kyoto or even here in Tamano city all the way up in Okayama the typical jock with his crew of equally horny to the point of mental impairment buddies gravitated towards and tried poorly to chat up the Yamato Nadeshiko otherwise known as Konoe Konoka. He couldn't blame them either for noticing since she did have perfect alabaster skin she took time to take proper care of and was dainty as a flower making you sometimes want to sweep the frail looking damsel off her feet.

Negi shook his head to scold himself for going down this line of thought. Yes sadly to Negi's regret the teen had learned to appreciate the Konoe girl's beauty but she was his friend, a comrade, a little sister and the girl he had helped out of a tree when they were nine years old that she somehow climbed up thirty feet in a kimono just to go "rescue" a cat that had climbed down the moment the caring girl reached the top. It did not compute to see Konoka, the woman he still called ojou-sama to annoy her as anything more than a friend.

And besides he was very afraid of Sakurazaki Setsuna. The first time they had met Negi had instantly developed a short lived childish crush on the beautiful swordswoman but that was until he found out how introverted she was and what the girl did to people who looked like they would upset Konoka with her sword. The ice cream man sold up his store down the street a week later after the poor bastard was made to wet his pants.

Negi knew the routine to counterattack when Setsuna was not here with her sword to scare the masses of hormones away. The red head climbed to his feet lazily and already missed the comfy spot these tools had made him depart from. The mage allowed for time to pass for Konoka to try and politely rebuff the advances of the group of three, giving him the moral justification Setsuna, bless her heart for caring too much wouldn't give them before threatening them off or pulverising if Setsuna had any say in it before making a move.

The mage took in a deep cleansing breath and politely coughed. "Are you okay Konoka ojou-sama?" Negi asked in his best regal voice. The girl swirled round to scold him for calling him by that name but the guys trying to ask her to go to tea or some other cliché thing were also sizing him up. It only made him think even less of these brutes with the pea sized brains.

"So your name is Konoka?" one of the dudes, a surfer in green trunks and bleached blonde hair asked smugly.

"I think I just told you that," Negi interrupted. The best way to deal with the terminally horny was to punch them unconscious. For those who were not a regenerating hanyo plan B was to intimidate and glare at them in the most polite way possible. He thought the idea sucked too. "Are they bothering you?"

"What is it to you?" another bum, a probable university drop out much too old for a junior high school girl anyway, around two to three inches taller than Negi was with green tight trunks and a bad case of sun burn on his shoulders.

"The lady is with me guys," Negi growled. Konoka, sweetness incarnate nodded dutifully to his declaration. Negi was not sure if she could sense the tension in the air. The promise of violence clung like a bad odour over the beach. Observers like passing couples and kids playing on the beach were watching speculatively boarding gawking in some people interested in watching brawls and could most likely smell the musk of menace. "So go away." It was said with a voice that threatened pain if his request was denied.

"Or what?" the first guy, the leader of the gang it seemed since the others trying to pick up women were nodding in time with his bleached highness like a group of really bad mimes.

Negi smiled condescendingly, opened his mouth as if to say something that had the group on edge in anticipation of a quick retort until he shook his long fringe from his green eyes and stretched his left arm out with his right. Then for just a moment enjoying that they kept gaping at him like he was made of money that was so fast that most would have missed it if not peering intently his face shifted to one promising death that coincided with a concentrated blast of killing intent that would make veteran warriors wet their pants. The group to his pleasure at it finally working fell to their knees like their strings had been cut before Negi smiled again. The simple gesture had the men tripping over their feet and backing away with as much dignity as they could muster.

Third time's the charm or so they say anyway. In this case the charm made him feel all gooey inside that all his lessons with master in projecting his killing intent were not such a waste of time after all.

"Did you have to do that?" Konoka moaned, "Set-chan does that all the time wherever we go."

"Setsuna would have done a lot…" Negi felt nauseous all of a sudden as an energy spike in the air around him passed through his body and instantly the mage went on alert.

The sensation lasted for merely a moment; the shivering of his body unconsciously brought a recurring sense of nausea out of respect to the momentary gigantic explosive force of the power that shimmered all around him. He had to clear his eyes as his equilibrium failed him for an instant and his ears began ringing with the feeling of being in an airplane but what he didn't hear was what made him worry.

The world had become like the rippling tide only silent. The people moved like they were moving faster or slower in time than he was. Every breath each person took, every single step distorted their true image until it was unclear what they looked like. The land followed suit where the gentle wind touched. It was like the air itself was actually disrupting subspace.

Negi had been in a dimensional fold before but not one so close to the real world. This was neither the alien paradigm these holes in space and time were usually nor something disorientating or a place breaking the rules that normally governed the normal world and normally artistic license was taken when these kind of traps were sprung. Like the one his family had walked into on the pilgrimage to Ostia. The thousand master's journal had described it as being a vast void of white that had nothing or anything for miles around. His father had flown for hours perfectly vertically and saw no end in sight either until with the help of Albireo Imma they pulled down a wall of the field with their bare hands. His mother had spoken of the recreation room in the destroyed palace long ago that had been equally the same only instead it was a vast coastline with a constant warm sun bathing down on them twenty four seven.

This rupture was nothing more than a hole to place someone slightly out of alignment with the world around them. He took time to get used to it as his ears although not painful still rang but it was quieting by the second. The blurs were starting to stabilise when he almost had his bearings back to create washed out blurs with more familial details to prove they were actually the people who had been sharing the beach with them. Negi realised that he was not alone in this world.

A group of darkly clothed shinobi and kunoichi were standing around a trembling Konoka. They all wore identical baggy clothing in an attempt to remove any identifying features however vague like sex or height and some of what he observed was false. The red head could pick out subtle attempts at illusions that his magic with a mental command was filtering with no problem. At his count before he unleashed his full blazing aura in his first mind game with his enemy they had twenty people surrounding the terrified Konoka Konoe, three of them partially hidden in their comrades shadows each with their individual ninjato swords pointed at a vital point on her body.

If they had been allies he would have been impressed for their efficiency. Instead he was so enraged at being taken off guard so casually and his friend taken hostage so easily Negi just wanted to obliterate them all in one barrage. The only problem was Konoka. His childhood friend had never seen him do anything but spar with Kotaro half heartedly and Asuna wanted, no to a great extent wanted her best friend kept oblivious to Negi's lack of morality concerning killing.

It was not the Mundus Magicus way.

Negi pooled his magical power within him. Konoka tried to call out when the shinobi were distracted by the redistribution of his magical energy only for one of the ninja, a kunoichi he was sure slapped a piece of paper around her mouth and the girl went still like she had been frozen in a block of ice. The kanji on the paper dripped off the paper and travelled up to her eyes like worms borrowing through the earth. In a moment the young Konoe had slumped unconscious.

In an immediate surge of fury Negi's skin turned darker as black sludge like energy appeared to pour from the pores of his skin to surround his entire body. It travelled up right through his form submerging his entire torso in an instant, covering up his trunks and upon submerging him right up to his neck just below his chin it tightened until it was snug on his body. From within it hundreds of strands of this energy no thicker than a pencil lead shot out from every point on his body after his prey.

Two of the enemy, one of them the Kunoichi incapacitating his friend grabbed the Konoe girl and dashed out of the way. The others scattered to take advantage of their numbers and in synch they took star shaped shurikens from a concealed part of their bodies and threw them. Negi watched them get closer and listened for the right time by the swishing sound of the metal flying at him before he recalled the strands and reshaped them to make a shield to block them.

But in the brief moment he lost sight of a couple of them four of them that seemed to include the ninja who had tried to hide among their kin used the shundo technique to invade his personal space in the blink of an eye and slash their ninjatos at his unprotected neck. Negi was soon safe when the black energy enveloped his full head leaving eye holes and some for his other facial orifices. The ninjatos bounced off the protective magic with a clang and in a counterattack Negi's hands reshaped to make blades to stab only for him to remember Konoka would see the aftermath of his slaughter. The idea of traumatising her and his inner voice that reminded him of his oba-chan chiding him for trying to kill someone in front of innocent friends made him momentarily hesitate and waste time in reshaping them to make subtle knuckledusters to bludgeon two of them unconscious.

As the other two retreated to a safer distance Negi whispered a single word and two misshaped abominations, his marionettes conjured from his twisted imagination with thin rakish bodies like a chimpanzee with long cat like tails that contained spiky protrusions on the tips emerged. To complete the look they wore ancient Greek style white masks that only added extra credibility to their ghoulish look when they clambered out of his enemies' own shadows and pinned them to the floor. When the ninja tried to resist the slender tails were put up against their necks threateningly until they gave in at least for the moment.

In the moment between breaths a few questions rattled inside his mind. Who were these guys? They didn't move like Kotaro nor did they carry weaponry or equipment like any member of the lotus battalion the mutt described or even anything the Black Hand, the Shinmei ryu united shinobi forces liked to use. Their skills levels were not all that great either and their battle tactics so far... The less said about that the better. But the big questions stuck out more and the inconsistencies... Why didn't they leave with Konoka already? Wasn't the future heir of the Shinmei-ryu their objective? Or did they want…

The mystery and his contemplations were cut silent by the two ninja holding his charge that Setsuna would castrate him for failing to protect trying to force a powder covered in paper down her throat while she was asleep. Negi used the shundo with some risk to him, reappearing luckily right in front of his enemy with his armoured body rebuilding rapidly due to his concentration wavering to perform his speed technique. The black clad mage allowed his hands to reform into pincer like shapes that careered forward, stretching his arms unnaturally around their necks and then the claws changing form again to completely cover their faces. To finish and with some vindication the sorcerer smacked their heads together so hard it made him even wince.

"Are you alright?" Negi asked after peeling off the talisman and crushing it making the paper smoke before combusting into ash. His dark protective armour had melted through to burn his hand but the oily substance quickly regenerated. "Did you," he halted for a second as her eyes started fluttering before he concluded, "Did you swallow any of the powder?"

Konoka smacked her lips trying to taste any foreign substances in her mouth. "I don't think I swallowed any of it," Konoka moaned, rubbing her head, "But it was horrible. I felt okay one moment then I just…" Konoka stopped, her eyes rolled but the mage was able to send strands of his dark power to catch and hold her up. A singular thread stabbed the girl in the neck directly adjacent to the jugular vein and Negi used it to spike her with a burst of raw magical energy that woke her back up again. "Your shadow powers are amazing."

Negi was unable to accept her compliment due to the shinobi regrouping enough to destroy his minions and revive their unconscious comrades. They had broke off into two groups with ten of them charging forward with shundo techniques of their own while the last eight pulled out a talisman and started quietly chanting.

"Shield yourself!" Negi warned. He had enough already with these foes. They had kidnapped Konoka, knocked her out, had the gall to try to force some unknown and potentially harmful substance onto her and they were slinging talismans around.

There was no redemption for these people. If Konoka's skin was even slightly discoloured Setsuna would be grouchy with him for weeks.

From his feet a puddle of shadow energy spread out around him on the intangible sand. It enveloped the unconscious ninjas and made them seem as if they had never been there in the first place. It spread out for nearly fifty metres stopping at the water's edge and it gained a look identical to that of the ocean at night with its continuous rippling. It looked like an artist had painted a contrast of the day and night of the ocean cycle side by side.

The first shinobi attacking him landed in the sludge and was dragged under like he was standing in quick sand until the man vanished into the depths. Five more shared this destiny until the last of the attackers used their comrades as platforms to jump back and avoided suffering the same fate.

Just then the eight talisman users finished their talisman chants, making the talismans all glow and then spit out a purple crackling beam that resembled lightning between each talisman until they reached the centre that gathered around the central shinobi's talisman that shrunk to fit onto his palm that they discharged at him.

(Greek) "Kronos Telvos Magnia," Konoka chanted, holding her hands out where upon her ring finger on her right hand a delicate thin platinum band sat glittering, "A world blessed by eternal peace, forged by the hand of man. May this land of the pure, shield and protect thy invoker with its warm embrace. The shield of the pure ones!" Around her body a silvery colour emitted off her entire body like steam. This steam spread out like an eerie fog until upon reaching five feet in front of her solidified into a cubic shield that completely surrounded her.

With that cue Negi disappeared into the pool of darkness he created, returning at the edge of its perimeter where the talisman users and their quick witted friends were standing. He caught the tail end of that strange lightning ricocheting off Konoka's nigh impregnable barrier.

Negi created some marionettes with his own pool of shadows, large beings with ape like arms and powerful clawed feet with white hockey like masks strapped to their faces tightly and ordered them to rush his unprepared foes while he snuck in some mono molecular thin threads in their millions. The difficulty curve of the latter technique while maintaining the marionettes was extreme enough that it made his raven coloured armour expose his skin in several sections while he sent them at his foes vibrating at incredible speeds.

An instant splash of crimson answered his assault. His marionettes had crushed all four of the surviving ninjato users by forming longer limbs and going on all fours to pin two of them beneath their powerful forelimbs and their tails, thin like a rat's and with needle fine bladed on the tips they had stabbed into their torsos. The wires only met smoke as the rest used a ninpo technique to make bunshin or copies to conceal their ascent to the air.

Four of the darkly dressed enemy landed at exactly the same time and threw shurikens. As Negi vanished again into the darkness the people in the sky had landed on the shoulders of their comrades, drawn some new talismans and started chanting. The red head decided to remain dematerialised and only made the currents of the shadow ocean rougher to hide his head, the only part of his body visible in the darkness to wait and see what happened.

The talisman users emitted an enormous amount of chi from their bodies, their entire bodies glowed a bright white indicating a great deal of training in manipulating chi and honing it within their bodies. Each moment he stayed hidden proved an educational experience in who these people could belong to and he wasn't worried about the shielded Konoka.

She had stayed in the same position she had been in when she cast the spell. It was its only flaw. It didn't stop her from chanting an Onmyoujutsu, ethereal prayer beads were crackling around her hands and forearms without marring her pale flesh. The heir to the Konoe house had her eyes closed and a magical circle was glowing underneath her as she made her prayer to invoke divination spells as well as attempts to communicate with the outside.

Konoe Konoka was doing her job perfectly.

The conclusion of that mighty blast produced nothing but a loud pitched sound that made his shadows rescind towards his position towards the core of the sea of darkness. His own ears were ringing once again until he plugged them with more clumps of shadow and Konoka's shield had to be reinforced to block out high pitched sounds when she made the command, causing the shield to change shape to a pyramid and burn bright yellow.

Negi took that moment to finish them all off while the reinforcement to Konoka's barrier was still active. Anytime now his family were going to be breaking through the paper thin walls between realities and he didn't want Nekane or Asuna getting hurt. He didn't need to worry about Konoka but it looked like she was starting to worry about him and her diverted attention might cause her shield to waver and quite frankly he was disappointed in himself that he had taken so long to win this battle. The sea of shadow was too slow and he should have gone like his shishou and hit them directly.

Now this technique Negi was about to use. His master had warned him as it took a great cost to your energy to use. It needed time to form and just in general was something frowned upon by the shadow users who knew how easily their art consumed their inner power in one sitting when their long ranged repertoire was restricted to threads or wires with limited distance. Anything like firing cannonballs took the right conditions not to exhaust you after five or six shots.

The school child emerged from his remaining shadow, shivering at how hard it was to maintain keeping all those captured within his spiritual focus and spread it another ten feet around him. Then with an exaggerated waving motion of his arms a gigantic snake shaped ball of black energy emerged and took position in front of him in mid air. He fed more and more of the energy in small fine threads from his fingers, coaxing its erratic shape like a bubble about to burst to both feed its insatiable demand for power and keep it from blowing him up before it was ready. The mental concentration was taxing, the energy he could dully feel reverberating through his being was off the scale. He could barely manage to retain the protection around the critical points of his body and the sorcerer was forced to give up some of the points to the silent enemy no doubt planning an attack.

Negi knew one thing would happen after all this was over. He was never using this again in a hurry.

The tunnel vision kept him unaware of what was going around him. There were some defences in place like an automated system of defence that he had given free will to defend him but that still needed regulation so the power requirements or rather its limited supply meant its effectiveness was unreliable.

The shinobi force stupidly instead of launching a direct attack tried another barrage of shuriken that his defence took care of with ease. One even tried to attack the defence instead of going right through it and it would have been easy to use their impressive speed not that it mattered at this point. He was only adding more fuel to the fire now. If they cut his concentration at worst he might miss a couple of them.

The first dig at his ribs from a sword edge broke the flow of thought needed to contain the sphere. Negi happily released his hold over the ball and in a moment his vision went black and he felt himself being swept away by the current.

He floated helplessly around the endless darkness and occasionally banging into either one of the newly caught talisman users or the unconscious bodies he had already removed from the field of play. All Negi did was close his eyes and wait for the tiny dimensional space he had conjured and compressed to within two ninths of its true diameter to rush out to its full size, possibly overlapping and destroying the existing dimension in a sheer clash of spiritual forces.

These shinobi seemed to know a hell of a lot about his powers. The very fact they trapped Konoka and him here spoke of their knowledge and intelligence gathering. Konoka Konoe he could understand but his fighting had been reduced to patrols around Mahora on the weekend or sparring with Kotaro in the multi environmental resort his godmother allowed him to use as long as he left her a text message. Any big time fighting had been in Mundus Magicus and all his training had been done in secret in the dead of night as was the way of the shadow masters of the old world to stop rivals stealing their moves.

All that didn't matter for the moment. The thick miasma laced environment was finally starting to break down. The energy of the void had been entirely consumed from expanding too rapidly and already the walls of existence were breaking down to leave only oily residue that was impossible to reform into useful power for him to employ. Scholars claimed dark matter was the residue of a falling dimensional barricade, like flaws in space and time just like this.

Negi opened his eyes to see he was back in the trap world his foes had made and Konoka was still safe and sound. Her shield had changed shape again to allow her ethereal praying beads to connect to it and allow her to purify with a white hissing any of the waste matter of a dead universe. It was a true show of her amazing potential, the power that made people claim her family lineage were descended from the gods like his own.

"Are you alright Konoka?" Negi asked, realising how tired he was as it came out like a whisper that echoed across the space that was flickering like a dying light bulb in sections. His lucky day as it had suffered cohesion loss in the little rumble with the dimension growing within it. His shadow was almost gone except for the strands around his wrist and he was shivering as the usually warm aura he exuded had waned to tell him the shinobi had tried to make him uncomfortable by lowering the temperature inside the world.

"I'mfine," Konoka said, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I couldn't see you when you did whatever you did. All I saw was darkness and I just kept up my shield and stayed still while it swirled all around me and…" Negi's eyes failed to hide the incredulity they expressed. She had managed to stay stationary in a forming universe? Even for a small dimensional rift what had been inside was a spark compared to the real big bang that brought the universe into being but still she had managed to defy it with only _magic_… "I couldn't see you or sense you and all the diagnostic spells went haywire and my divination kept screaming about the end of the world and…"

Negi took the time to look around the world some more. The shimmers had become more full bodied and however quiet the sounds of the real universe were definitely there when he controlled his breathing. The two worlds were starting to sense the existence of the other and if it had been improbable before to enter from the outside to someone of his godmother's skill the job would have been expedited exponentially.

"It seems all our enemies were swept into the collapsing vortex of a dying universe," Negi explained, seeing nothing all around him but Konoka and herself. He was too drained to waste magical energy on sensing, a skill he was especially skilled in to look for more opposition. If anyone had escaped they would have reacted instantly to his weakened state and the magnitude of his magical manifestation immediately to stop him trying it again. "We just need to wait for pickup," he added, feeling faint. The rush of his power surging back into his being, recharging automatically was like drinking a bottle of vodka in one go. His legs gave way and he hit the ground, wincing from the third degree burn on his hand from earlier when he used it to slow his fall.

"Negi-chan!" Konoka cried, breaking her shield forcefully and running over to him. She knelt down on bent knees and with both hands wrapped around his waist in a comforting hug. Negi leaned back into her embrace, smelt her scent he had been used to since they were children. Her magic was by nature warm and protective just as her magical mastery leaned towards. "Are you alright?"

Negi offered his cauterised wound; the talisman that had burned it was so hot Negi had suffered minimal bleeding by peeling back his shadow to his wrist. Konoka began to fuss and already a soft glow was enveloping her left hand while her right formed what appeared to be a long strip of kanji covered medical tape that upon a command in ancient Japanese became animated and started wrapping his hand tightly.

"You have gotten better with those Shikigami," Negi said grinning. "I remember you used to cry when your origami birds wouldn't take flight."

Konoka adopted a cross look but it did not reach her eyes. Instead she tugged his wrist a bit harder than her usual delicate touch and checked to see if the pressure the paper made was sufficient.

"You were always such a show off with all those tripwires you tried to trip up Gateau-san with. But Negi…" She held her breath only when she was reluctant to ask any questions. "Can those people come back?"

Negi considered lying about the fact they were obliterated into the ether but he realised she needed to know about his willingness to kill. They had held it back from the fragile princess, both his oba-chan and himself for too long. They had been in a war for god sake for the freedom of an entire nation that if circumstances were a bit different he would be second in line for the throne.

"There won't be an atom of them left Konoka," Negi said to her straight, feeling a single crystalline tear drip onto his bare shoulder. The girl had the purest heart of anyone Negi knew. "I created a new dimension for a minute then collapsed it so they were sucked in. I made sure that you and I weren't hurt but the others... they're sucked into oblivion and there will be nothing left of them now or ever." Negi had deliberately pulled no punches.

The silence that followed made more noise than the entire skirmish before. Negi held her hand and watched on a silent vigil feeling the usually serene person shake as she silently with only a few hiccups to hide the tears that continued like a light rainstorm down his shoulder. Each drop tore a new hole in his soul as his best friend learned of what her best friend was capable of.

It was much to his shame but he considered again who and what the enemy had for a motive for all this. Konoka had not been the target. That left only him and that made no sense. The only shinobi he knew was the exile Inugami Kotaro who had taken the chance at a new life away from the lotus battalion. Could it be one of the tiny clans who hadn't joined the Shinmei ryu during the Meiji restoration? Say groups like the Koga clan who were nothing but splinter families slowly forgetting the skills their ancestors had honed for centuries. But who would hire anyone to capture a worthless exiled prince? Of a dead kingdom no less?

All he was sure of was now he would never know why they were here. Nobody was left standing. He would have to wait out the priestess's tears or be greeted by his family and need to explain why she was crying.

It didn't matter now. Vacation was ruined and the red head would be on the first flight home to be debriefed and then yelled at by his irate aunt the first moment they would get alone. Oh joy!

"Negi-chan?" Konoka whimpered finally, snorting her nose cutely. She hugged his back with her face and then rested her head on her shoulder. The quiet sniffles reverberated like bells in a belfry in his ears. It ate some more into his guilt. "You and Asuna-chan used to travel around in a war party with your kaa-san and tou-san. Is that where you…"

"Not here," Negi asked curtly, "Wait till oba-chan and the old people get us out of here. You can ask them together when we are all safe and sound."

"I can," she sniffled, "Live with that Negi-chan."

"Good girl ojou-sama," he joked weakly, patting her head. "Give me some help while I sense for cracks in the dimensional space. Maybe we can help them out."

She struggled but the girl managed to chant the Japanese phrase and draw the symbols required with her fingers that upon completion phased into being on her wrist. A line of magical energy travelled between the two marks and he felt the brief infusion of power and the control that made the rushing powers inside Negi's body stabilise under her direction.

Once his inner self was sated and the connection was broken to stop him confusing her energy as part of the readings he wanted to look out for Negi closed his eyes and reached out with his senses. Everything and anything with a power signature informed him of its presence from everywhere for nearly a hundred metres. He sensed the crackling of tiny micro fractures invisible to the naked eye but too small for his powers in their current state to force open. The walls hiding this world from the real world overlapping it were thinning and had a limited lifespan before nature took its course and they would be freed anyway.

But above him to his dread suddenly Negi felt a bio signature above him. The being existed in both worlds and an exit was there just above it, a small hole that had been forced open. The mage bit back his urge to say "Bingo" when he saw freedom and a way out and stupidly stared up vacantly right at the Holy Grail in question.

A black thing that moved at super high speed shot down like a bullet right at him and being so blindsided Negi's subconscious only had enough time to push a startled Konoka out of harm's way before a horrible pain wracked through his body. The blood shower was horrible; the agonising wound in his shoulder made him savagely bite his lip and the woman holding him down was just the icing on the cake.

"Negi-chan!" screamed Konoka so loudly Negi was sure the hole in the sky would have let echo out for all to hear. "Oh god," she tried to crawl forward but a burst of killing intent so vile it made Negi want to vomit made the girl step back and leave a trail of urine.

The doe like expression on her face let the beast known as rage growl like the very lord of the dead himself seem like a whimper. His two shadow protected hands made piano wire like strands that took hold of the woman and flung her with the power of a bulldozer fitted with a race car engine hundreds of feet across the dimension.

The kunoichi landed gracefully after scraping her feet across the floor like skates to gain some traction that caused her open long blonde locks to flutter around her and drew am elegant katana, the first deviations from the norm suggesting who the leader of this team had been. The woman covered her masked face with some kind of origami wing she must have used to escape his earlier attack from her hidden position and a kodachi blade in the winged hand.

"Come on then," Negi shouted, no demanded authoritatively at the top of his lungs. The red head in a display of stubborn male pride yanked out the embedded ninjato spilling blood it had been holding back like a flood. With a snarl a strand of the shadow around his wrist writhed up his arm like a coiled spring and expanded to serve as a makeshift field dressing. Negi grabbed the bladed weapon into one hand biting back the yelp leaving his cracked tooth as the only casualty of his resistance from the pain and threw it back at the hesitant woman. "What is keeping you?" His killing intent with a concentrated effort was honed and channelled with maximum intensity right at her and the kunoichi stood her ground easily.

He counted between pulses of blood in his arm. In time he blinked with each ache of his moaning arm wrapping the various strands into two singular whips and cracked them like a professional bull fighter. The kunoichi dodged effortlessly, throwing thin shurikens from her ankles that were stopped in their tracks by the almost living shadows that devoured them before they could reach their target. The powerful kunoichi slashed and tore her way through the shadows but each time she was forced to retreat or risk being captured.

Like a game of cat and mouse this continued for a time. Negi knew he was being probed, tested for weaknesses and her game plan was to tire him out and the worst thing was Negi knew he had no hope in hell in beating her in this war of attrition. Negi had to change tactics again. The straight forward kill until they fall only worked when you were in the peak of your strength.

The red head stopped his attack, wrapped the shadow whips to make a springy bowl shaped shield and used the shundo to dive into it. He submerged into its depths and mentally commanded it to mould around his skin. Just as it retook its position in its defensive form he felt one of the blades strike his side and again another in his knee. Negi struck and god was with him as the shadows wrapped around the weapons and yanked them out of her hands.

Negi righted himself and brought the weapons to each of his hands. The woman was stationary seemingly nonplussed about having both of her weapons taken away with trickery. She just stayed in stance plotting her next move.

"Negi-chan," Konoka whispered loudly, "You…" She was hiccupping from fear. Those not used to killing intent usually were overwhelmed for a long time until they brought their emotions under control or learned to lean into it. His training adopted the former.

The woman made a swift movement reaching into her uniform and Negi tensed, solidifying his armour to be ready for action. What the blonde girl did surprised him. She took out a crisp like new talisman with very neat calligraphy and placed it on her forehead. The woman then rather dramatically which was out of character for a trained kunoichi taught to use as little wasted movements as possible it into the air without any kind of preparation and stepped back.

The flow of power was gigantic when that strip of paper combusted instantly with a fierce scarlet fire so powerful that the mage had felt it through his armour. The fire took form first with nine like tails of golden yellow flame. Then the fire formed a body in the shape of a lithe female body blessed with generous curves and assets. Next from each of the original nine fires like will of the wisps came a white hot fire that created a beautiful if a little tattered flower patterned kimono. The last features produced a feminine Japanese face, porcelain skin that rivalled Konoka in all ways in its perfection, a regal arched jaw line and a mess of primly brushed golden locks that ran down her body until they met the original flames that too turned into golden furred tails.

"A demon," Negi breathed. Her black slatted eyes sang of an unworldly abomination of epic power. Her mere presence made his heart skip a beat, his soul shiver in terror and behind him Konoka had started to hyperventilate. Only the old ones, beings of unquestionable power could simply cause a person to react this way without resorting to killing intent.

He didn't get a chance to admire her for very long. Her nine tails of power whipped around her like a hurricane and immediately the temperature skyrocketed high enough for him to struggle to breathe. His shadow armour could not regulate his body temperature and before he understood that it was a warning to something even more dangerous the nine tails created a force of power unlike any Negi had detected before.

Negi didn't understand what parts of his body said defend but it had to have but it did not matter what it did. It had not been enough. His entire body screamed out like a chorus of tortured prisoners. Every single nerve that existed all registered their existence and his lungs; the very air they breathed was like being branded with a branding iron every time he dared take breath.

But its presence jostled him to open his eyes. Surprisingly he was wrapped in the remnants of the ultimate defensive spell of the shadow arts commonly known as a spiral shield or for layman terms a twisted inversion of the space time continuum usually conjured up first with a catalyst from an existing technique like his shadow armour. But the shield had failed to perform its function. His shoulders were red raw, his knees and upper legs were smoking from the horrific burns they had endured.

Negi was more surprised that he wasn't in more pain than he actually felt.

"I'm still alive," he said incredulously. The demon woman stared down at him with those expressionless eyes and those pointed ears that were well hidden within her golden locks. Her staring made no sense. Why not employ just another blast of whatever the hell she just did to him? What was she…? Wait? Negi looked around and could not see the kunoichi that had attacked him.

"Watch out!" Konoka screamed.

The warning came too late. The tell tale rush of someone using the famed shukuchi technique the mutt had used so much in sparring to get to the opposite side of wherever she had been to face him now directly originally left his dulled reflexes no time to react. Negi could only watch his final moments until a black blur creating the displaced air of a perfectly performed shukuchi saved the day and the fatalistic slapping sound of metal entering flesh echoed through the dimension.

Reality slowed to a crawl. Time flowed back to the snail pace that only appeared to affect the heavy body that leaned into his torso. Negi winced at the sharp sting of an edge cutting shallowly into his side and the fountain of red hacked onto his cheek and torso that came acted out a grotesque dance. The waltz of death done by his best friend in the world Inugami Kotaro made his adrenaline overdosed heart start beating like a war drum.

Kotaro stared up at him with a glazed look. His ears and tail were convulsing as if he was being electrocuted and his breathing was erratic. Kotaro's mouth dribbled blood and his clawed hands tightly held back the spray from the katana stabbed right through his stomach.

"Hey," Kotaro gasped as his form started becoming hairier with black fur by the moment. His naked toned torso started shape shifting as his hanyo side started to take over to heal his weakened body sending bristling pain from the fine hair on his burned body. "Sorry I was late."

"Kotaro-kun?" Konoka whimpered from behind him. The Inugami hanyo clenched hard into Negi's shoulder piercing the already charbroiled flesh by accident from the pain. The scent of blood, the mage's to be specific but Kotaro managed to suppress his natural instincts to look over his taller friend's shoulder over for Kotaro to be able to smile weakly at the priestess. While dog boy tried poorly to lie to the priestess Negi could feel the bloody sword wound pulse with fresh blood escaping his futile attempt to contain it by holding Kotaro closer to his own body.

"Kotaro!" Konoka screamed. Negi hadn't seen what happened but rather heard the wracking cough and the felt the stream of blood falling down his bare back and again it felt like acid on his injured form.

While this all occurred the demon just stood there elegantly staring hard at the situation. The kunoichi was missing once more but the interfering surges of chi from Kotaro from resisting the full transformation interfered with any chance of sensing him with his dulled pain receptors playing up as well.

"Let me go," Kotaro wheezed in the wizard's ear. "I shouldn't have just dived into the action and get this fucked up." He coughed again and slumped even further downwards. Konoka screamed and the kunoichi was still not visible. The woman demon had her nine blonde tails dancing like the sun behind her body all nonchalant.

His dead emotion regarding his healing friend was replaced by a seething anger. He without thinking expelled a suffocating amount of killing intent so potent the demon took a step back. The kunoichi reappeared beside her summoned companion with her hand shielding her face.

"I'm scared!" Konoka screeched. The petrified girl was like a temple gong when she crumpled to the ground. The injured hanyo pushed back from his friend with his eyes rolled behind his head. Negi took his green eyes off his target for just a second to watch the descent of his friend and the last thing Negi would recall as whom he truly was would be to his later guilt a surge of annoyance that Kotaro had grabbed the choker, his only memory of his mother around his neck to stop himself falling to the ground.

When that hunk of gold snapped off for the first time since his mother had presented it to him as a toddler the teenager known as Springfield Entheofushia Anarchia Negi ceased to be.

The stigma of the king had taken his place.

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A/N End of chapter but you will find out the conclusion of this battle next chapter.


	2. Stigma Of The King

"Neo Negima"

"Black Sakura"

By Sweet Heavens

Chapter 2: Stigma Of The King

Disclaimer: If I freaking owned Negima I would also have created Love Hina and if that were the case Mutsumi would have been with Keitaro. I may be a masochist but come on! At least Mutsumi was gorgeous!

**Member of "Otaku Town"**

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It was strange at first like he was an outside observer watching himself helplessly inside his own body. He could only watch on like he was watching from a camera as the family heirloom, the gold choker gifted to him by his beautiful mother clanged rather loudly to the ground. Immediately Negi could sense wrongness, an irregularity what amounted in simple terms to a black hole in his memory displayed before him that seemingly had come out of literally nowhere and alongside this gap something unknown yet so damn familiar, oddly invigorating and what amounted to an addiction given new fire was breathing new life.

This instinct had been utilised before, the very feelings and sensations so comforting and familiar but he did not know when or what its purpose could be. He had learned long ago about mental mapping or the art of cognitive protection. When mastered a mage could sense when something or someone had tampered with his memories, his feelings or his higher emotions needed for certain magical rituals. So far Negi had been so sure that nothing had been done to him before but now…

This great big hole, this void of nothing deeper than his greatest shadow ability now existed when the choker came off. It stuck out like a big fucking beacon any stupid magi with training could sense was wrong. The choker, his precious memento of his own mother had been masking a great secret, a masterful deception and someone or some people close to him had now been found out to be trying to hide something important from him. The conspirator(s) had been trying to cover up their sloppy memory eradication technique and now he was reaping the consequences of his imposed ignorance. Negi was watching helplessly in his own beaten body, observing his badly wounded friend transforming into his canine demon side to heal the wound he had taken in Negi's place in front of his eyes. The mage rattled his self imposed cage to go out and help but he could only be a spectator hearing his terrified friend Konoka whimpering like a tortured puppy as a seal of some kind began drawing a raven coloured circle around the shadow user's body.

This circular seal contrasted with the collapsing white dimension that now with the continued presence of the observing demon was beginning to show signs of weakening ever swiftly than anticipated as it phased from this farce of a universe to the dominating true universe outside. It began to ripple and collapse making small holes with pinpricks of light shining inside from the unrestrained beach sun.

The markings that began to bleed into the circumference starting from around his body to the perimeter were of a language he knew not of. It was not of Ostia or the tongue he had learned to read anyway. It didn't look as primal like the beast tribes near Ariadne. Hell it didn't even resemble one of the olden languages like Sanskrit or ancient Greek.

It didn't matter. That feeling of exhilaration was beginning to expand into emotions, longings and thoughts that were not his own. They felt wrong yet so, so very right. A cold shiver swam inside his head like a state of shock associated with being covered in ice cubes while naked before then and lastly a lingering crawling sensation like his own skin was trying to tear itself off his own bones.

Once these archaic letters, numerals whatever the fuck they were fully formed the symbols began to spin in a counter clockwise direction while the periphery of the circle went in the opposite direction. It was not a seal Negi expected to neither know nor understand. It had no plausible function for him to interpret but what he really knew about seals were simple capturing spells like any other kid used for small animals or to defend camps from robbers.

He would continue to reap the sum of his ignorance as black flames without warning and with nobody moving from the enemy side still much to his confusion between keeping an eye on the unexplainable seal growing around him swallowed him whole. Inside the eternal darkness resembling his shadow powers these feelings, these guilty sensations evolved into an intelligence of instincts and whispers of righteousness. Of regal ambition that spoke no demanded he was the very ruler of all he could see around him and beyond.

Soon these instincts, these whispers that spoke of rebellion blossomed into all out revolution against the very fabric of who Negi claimed to be as a person and took control of his helpless body. They started to infect Negi the observer as well falling into line until he was back in control of his body only now things were different. His mind unified into one collective belief.

Now he was the stigma of the black king. The king, lord and master of all he surveyed. Even this pretty fox demon bitch that had almost killed him and outmatched him was now his minion as was all her kind. When the coal black fires dispersed leaving nothing behind the king was ready to command.

His first priority was to examine his burned torso. It was covered in those symbols he had read on the floor overlapping even the burns and the copiously bleeding shoulder wound that Negi now knew to be called the divine language of the stigma. The markings of one fit to rule the kingdom of Ostia. The original gift given by the divine ones who's mere presence made it so holy to never speak of them unless in reverent tones. They gave birth to the line of Ostia, the markings themselves sired in a kingdom blessed by the blessed powers. They defied the pathetic realm of mere mortals even in imperfect vessels made of flesh and bone to force this pathetic body rise from the point of death and defy the kitsune cur that dared defile the body of her ruler.

"Obey and tend to me worthless being," he softly intoned locking eyes with her own eyes that burned with white flame. She stepped forward without dithering swatting the kunoichi that had summoned her aside or rather it tried in its haste to obey the command. The woman seemed to implode into wisps of white smoke upon contact with a fiery tail, a teleportation spell that took all of her tools with her to leave nothing to trace back to her.

But it did not matter that his enemy for now had escaped for there were other times for him to extract his minor revenge. The rebellious fox demon that he knew by name on sight, a kind of genetic memory regarding demons that continuously updated like his mind could cross over into other dimensional plains sort of like he was ducking his forehead into a body of water had made it over to him and bowed so deeply her kimono rode up to reveal her pale knee.

"What is your order my master?" she chimed submissively. With some satisfaction Negi slapped her across the face hard enough for it to make a cracking sound. The woman didn't even as much as register the harsh admonishment or even fluster when afterwards Negi followed his newfound instincts to another level and yanked her up by her fiery hair that no longer burned him. He chuckled hollowly at the almighty being he was treating like a doll and grasped her throat with his other hand squeezing tightly.

Upon full contact with both hands Negi could now detect the contract she was compelled by and he knew that with a mere thought this being could be his. With some satisfaction and with the markings that ran everywhere on his body right down to his toenails burning an angry red the king released her from her obligations until the demon had no more use for him to require her services. His power was absolute: All demons had to obey him no matter who they chose as a master. No material sealing like paper neither binding made by holy man or summoner nor especially the unbreakable contracts invoked between demons and humans were no obstacle to subjugate his will. His shadow powers when called failed to listen but it mattered not. His energies were being used in a more important manner by charging the stigma identifying him as ruler of the demon world.

It made him shiver again when his full purpose was explained to him. The student known as Springfield Negi to the world now had all this awesome power at his disposal and the new will to wield it that his old mind would never allow for. He was a king! A man, a being above the man beast writhing on the ground offering his blood from a wound he took to save Negi as a beautiful tribute to the red head's uprising and the mage snorted dismissively when he turned his back to watch the frightened princess of the Konoe line. His best friend was crawling on her knees trying futilely to retreat the hell away from him with fear.

Just like a king should be seen as.

"Fox," the king stated to garner her attention. With the summoner gone all he had left to test his dominion was on the whimpering girl behind him. The Inugami was not in any state writhing in agony from his uncontrolled change into his canine form to be of any use. His limbs kept contorting and his mass kept shifting and while that was entertaining on its own the king wanted to see what fox fire did on someone who was awake to enjoy the experience.

"Yes my lord," the fox asked with her melodic voice.

Negi did hesitate for a moment. A small powerful spark of what he had been before the renaissance protested at using the Konoe girl as the first casualty of his ascension to godhood. But then like any good possession it overrode his wilting will and smirked at how easy it had been to remove all resistance from his goals.

"Turn the female into ash," he ordered, sending an almost orgasmic thrill through him from his core. Pleasure mere commoners were not allowed to appreciate. His raven haired friend's pretty eyes grew wider like a cornered deer and her hitched breath only got worse. She was trying to speak but her burgeoning panic attack had taken hold of her body.

"I will obey my master," she purred. Her nine flaming tails began to spin enveloping his back with gentle warmth. The demon's demeanour as per his dominance demanded had her trying to make him as happy as possible.

"Negi…Negi…Negi," she spoke hiccupping to stop her continuing. Then with some effort preventing her rapidly deteriorating form she nearly whimpered, "-chan?"

Negi decided to indulge her and held his hand up. The fox kept her flaming tails rotating but did not fire its deadly payload.

"Speak up ojou-sama." Negi made a grand gesture to the void in general, "These will be your last words on this earth so make them count."

"Why?" she asked simply. It was profound, simple yet endeared and pleaded her case all in one simple word.

Negi paused for dramatic effect. His newfound instincts liked these simple amusements as was his right. He clicked his fingers and turned his back on her like one would see an ant.

"Because," Negi drawled, "I am a king and you are nothing to me."

The intensity of the heat increased, the nine tails of the demon fox flashed almost blindingly even with his back to them and soon the whirling sound of her attack converging into an inferno loud enough to crackle. The fox demon was intent on destroying every last molecule of Negi's test subject.

"I will perform the command you issued me," the fox demon spoke softly.

"Get on with it!" the red head snapped, "Then you can start on getting me out of here," the mage added curtly, "A king doesn't have time to dawdle."

"Forgive me for the delay," the fox said sounding almost ashamed. The stigma was absolute and everything the demon thought followed the mindset of serving him the best. The fires only got hotter for a moment singeing his arm hair before releasing the extremely powerful gout of fire.

"Goodbye…" he started to say his farewells but the possessed mage was interrupted by the crashing sound of the dimension around him with the epicentre being the hole in the roof.

His heart literally stopped from the sheer malice projected directly at him from above. Its intensity almost caused the air to ripple from its depth and intensity and overrode his basic desires for life. His almighty righteousness slipped away until his heart reminded itself to start up again in response to the new threat showering him in the glittering decaying particles of a dying universe.

Negi turned back round with the grace of a rock to find the landscape had become a jagged stalagmite glacier and a large chunk of this jagged ice was stabbed through the torso of his ally, the flame gone with the chilling wind. The fox demon in his control was swallowed whole in a great ice cube in a blink of an eye and her entire form was reduced back to its minimum to conserve her energy. In this case it was levitating ball of fire with nine burning tails trailing from around it. The useless fox was not going to be of any more help anymore. Not against this force of nature.

"Negi!" roared an angry blonde. Negi looked up viewing the blue sky that was now breathing in a gentle breeze and generating much needed warmth in this artificially cold environment. Negi felt his hair flutter as the air chilled to the point of excruciation or perhaps Negi questioned whether this cold sensation was some part of his suppressed former self but soon the rites of the king beckoned him to take a stance.

His godmother, shinso vampire, god to some over the centuries hovered over him like a ravenous beast waiting to pull the arrogance out of his very being. The pinnacle of power, the dark villain reformed freedom fighter of Ala Alba, the legendary crimson wings. She hovered with her bat wing cloak fluttering on one spot like a devil's cloak. It contrasted with her silver string bikini, luscious blonde hair and her pearly white fangs. She radiated anger and it wasn't being projected directly at him. She made an exaggerated gesture with her lithe hand and floating on a platform of ice was an unconscious priestess that flew up to orbit around the master vampiress.

"Negi!" roared again the woman known as Evangeline McDowell, his loyal godmother and most reliable life guide. "What have you done?"

He imagined the very pits of hell, the imminent death she could give him without even blinking. He was defenceless, beaten and had no means to call upon any other allies and yes with some extreme exertion on his part his shadow powers yet again did not awaken to give him a fighting chance, well at most it would buy him two minutes before the maelstrom tore his inky powers apart and then slaughtered him for the atrocity he attempted. The son of the mighty thousand master continued to quell under the increasing ancient malice but for the hairbreadth of a heartbeat then the persona of the king reminded him he was the ruler here. Negi knew there were still options to be played here.

"Godmother," Negi greeted coolly, "How nice of it to…"

Before he even knew it pain rippled through his stomach and his last sight was of a pair of moistening green eyes and blonde hair fluttering around his nose tickling it.

"Why did it have to be this way?"

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Negi awoke to an unfamiliar ceiling on a soft comfy bunk and tried to stand up from his lying down position and immediately vomited clutching his protesting abdomen. He could feel the familiar feeling of bandages rubbing against his throbbing stomach. It felt like someone had been using him as target practice for tank shells.

Where was he? It was dark with only the slight hum of a florescent bulb or similar magical illumination device to gently light the darkened space around his bed. He checked and he was wearing cloth pants the hospital issued but his torso was bare sans the tight bandagingrunning up to the impaled shoulder. He had to have come straight from the beach as there was itchiness that could only come from being still covered in sand and sea water from his beach vacation. Was he in a hospital room?He couldn't smell the hygienic smell of a sanitised ward. The poor lighting showed grainy walls that looked like ancient personified and the runes carved into the bleak walls were for containment like the inside of a prison cell would…

An ember of his time as the king flickered and Negi clutched his neck sighing with relief as the choker was back around his neck. It felt scratched, smudged and worse of all what amounted to a seal keeping the devil at bay had a long crack along its entire diameter so thick he could trace it with the callus of his thumb.

The knowledge gathered from his time as king had disappeared with only his blurred account to make any sense of. The feelings, the ideology and the addictive pleasure that other self brought were the only gifts or curses left over. The urge to just rip off the metal barrier smacked his morals, the very part that made him human full force and the red head had to literally manhandle his right hand grasping the choker unconsciously with the other so hard the stress made his torn wounded abdomen to protest and for him to vomit again.

That righteousness brought so much fear to him. Could he be capable of becoming that king of the stigma? He had heard legends of his homeland that spoke of the genesis of his unique family blood. Negi had grown up with fanciful tales of legend**s** of the black emperor that initially rallied the tribes of what was the floating nation of Ostia to eventually what came to be known as the kingdom of Vespertatia. The forging of a mighty unbreakable kingdom that had lasted until the catastrophe of nine years ago when the very laws of magic itself ceased to exist there and the floating capital fell to the ground.

Negi painfully climbed out of his bed with precision well in how he moved hoping to avoid vomiting again. His naked feet felt the cold of the slimy floor and the way he jumped from the cold caused greater complaints from his injured body. He tried batting some of the sand off him until he attempted to summon the shadow powers that gave him his power.

The red haired mage winced at the time it took to rouse those shadow abilities until after a time he reasserted his control over his power. It felt like some kind of block had been shattered by doing so.

Again the red haired mage fell down to his knees shivering like he had been left in a deep freezer. An emotion foreign to him had him puking what was little left in his stomach in the floor as Konoka came to the front of his mind.

This emotion was not guilt. Negi had dealt with that fighting with his family in Mundus Magicus when the mage had to kill people to survive. This boggled his mind's ability to interpret… Was this depression? What was there to be depressed about? He had been under the influence of the…

Negi recoiled in absolute horror at how easy it had been to justify the incident where he had almost incinerated his best friend for entertainment? Was the black king influencing him? Had this loosened seal allowed some remnant of what was the stigma stay with him. To eat away at this personality and bleed its vile poison into him until there was nothing left of the Negi that had loved his best friend like a sister. Treated her like a delicate maiden and wouldn't let her participate in the roughhousing his oba-chan? The girl he had allowed to talk him into putting on a miko's dress and black wig so they could watch the secretive training of the Onmyoujutsu on a fun packed weekend trip to Kyoto?

He was sickened to the very core of his being. Even now he was making excuses that were okay in his head but treacherous to the purity of his soul. He was battling something inside him that his mind repeated silently over and over again and it was like his soul was sticking its fingers in its ears and singing loudly to ignore it.

Negi recanted the words in the book of Ptolemy that spoke of possession or otherworldly manipulation. He searched each and every word he perfectly memorised and nothing comforted or aided him in his dissemination of what the black king was doing to him? Was it an alternate personality? Or was the one the seal…

Negi climbed to his feet uneasily as the conclusions made to his line of analysis. Was there a chance no matter how small that this personality was the false one created by the choker? And if so did the memory tampering have a part to play in all this? He had felt during his time as the black king that the stigma had been activated before? He knew one thing about memory tampering. It was a lot harder to hide than to erase completely. Emotions, feelings and sensations were a different type of memory. But what was "memory" to him?

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Was he?… Did he?...

The mage started to panic from his identity crisis and frantically looked for a door in the dank cell and found nothing but solid wall. He reached out and sent slivers of his control into the darkness around to find a weakness. He slammed the walls magically lacking his usual subtlety that was the cornerstone of probing techniques. His prodding only set off the containment spells that scattered the power he was moulding under his control and started up their countermeasures.

Negi hit the ground as the artificial gravity field jumped so his entire body was too heavy to stand up on causing an intense pain from his shoulder. The shadow powers he wielded were stripped away by a counter magical generation barrier and the runes on the walls started to glow a malevolent red promising horrible things to come should he keep trying to reoffend.

Then once more Konoka and her teary face joined with the bleeding body of his best friend. He started to dry heave again at how the black king had made it seem like something to be amused about. To see his best friend badly wounded…

"_Dear god what happened to Kotaro? Konoka was saved by my godmother but what about him?" _Negi lay there helpless recanting this desire to know the truth when all of a sudden the restraints were lifted. A hissing sound as something depressurised along with a blinding light as the lighting was increased so Negi could see that he _was _in a prison cell. It had been converted into a makeshift hospital room with the bed inside and in the corner there was other instruments such as an I.V. and a heart monitor that he couldn't have seen in the poor illumination before.

It made sense to him. What better place to keep a threat than a cell. He climbed to his feet wondering how long he had been down here. This location was the Mahora high security prison cells under the Catholic Church that served as its cover. This was an example of one of the only chambers of the ancient caverns that hadn't collapsed over the centuries it had been abandoned by the early Japanese magi until they were located while building this city. There were approximately thousands of miles of tunnels with a purpose unknown to magical archaeologists. Some of these tunnels were used by Library Island for high security operations or gave a home to certain spiritual beings that couldn't leave the confines of those places while others like this one were isolated and sealed off by coincidence and converted to suit a required purpose. Like the prison for example.

"Negi-san?" a girl called out to him. She had short red spiky hair with a tomboyish athletic body underneath the habit of her faith. She walked down the stairs holding the hand of a dark skinned girl, her magister magi with blank big eyes that seemed too mature for her size and age. Her long black hair framed her face and accentuated her childish body.

"Did Kotaro survive?" Negi shouted impulsively. His mind was in awhirl waiting for the answer. Did that stupid mutt… Negi bit his lip at his usual impulse to insult the dog boy. _"Damn it! Why do I keep doing that?"_ Negi thought bitterly. _"He saved my life but then again he was the one who grabbed…"_

Negi cried out as once again the attempts to excuse him from what had happened in that dimensional void. What the hell was wrong with him? And what did it mean to him? Did the choker bottle up some darker side to his being? Or was it taking away what he truly was?

"Negi-san," the red head called out like the nun had been trying to get his attention for awhile. She had an earnest and indulgent smile. She was really keen on helping.

"Yes Misora-chan?" he said frantically.

The sprinter in her spare time offered him a gentle smile that belonged to their time as friends. Negi did sometimes do small jobs for the Mahora Defence Force or MDF at times when manpower was a necessity and sometimes the jobs were stationed here where it was an easy place for large groups to people to meet up inconspicuously.

"I've been trying to tell you for about a minute Negi-san that Kotaro-san is perfectly fine. His wounds were serious but his ability to regenerate is very powerful and adaptable. He recovered three days ago."

Relief… That was all he could feel right now. Negi couldn't feel any better now. Nobody that was precious to the "normal" Negi was dead or hurt from his rampage while under the influence of the black king. The stigma hadn't made him do anything that would haunt him for the rest of his life. But the time that had elapsed was at least three days?

"Thank god," Negi relaxed. A small hand grabbed onto his and nudged him to look down where somehow the smaller nun had tried to offer her congratulations even if her expression didn't change. "I know its great right Cocone-chan?"

"Yes," she replied simply. It was hard to believe sometimes that she was the magister magi of the pair.

"How long have I been unconscious?" Negi asked hopefully. Too much time couldn't pass without fixing the whole situation was time he would need to repent for the rest of his life.

But what if they didn't forgive him? He had been a monster! He had acted like no Negi had been a fiend that commanded the powers of every demon in the world to his service with one word.

"The doctor told me that you had suffered from the effects of spiritual tremors and memory isolation. He had to breach up your emotions regarding the time spent in the category four dimensional phenomena. It's been about a week since you were brought here." Negi groaned without meaning to that the woman took for pain until Negi waved at her to show he was fine. "We were told to not touch you or interact with your body at any point so sorry about not cleaning you up." Misora weakly tried to make the last sentence into a joke.

Spiritual tremors could be explained by a possession or something traumatic happening to the soul that was caused artificially like say a seal being removed and then reapplied within a short time frame. The memory isolation might explain the feelings that erupted from him when he had asserted his magical prowess. That might have been the barrier keeping his memories and feelings separate cracking. And why he threw up everywhere…

"But I had to stay here for a week?" Negi asked his mind running a million different scenarios, "I had no idea tremors could be that bad."

"I was surprised too but I did read your chart and it stated that you had some kind of disorder called a symbiotic rejection trauma but I have no idea what that means sorry."

Negi hid it well but he still stiffened and his eyes went wild. He knew what that meant. It was another word for a failed possession. A magic technological term for something that tried to take over the soul of another but only succeeded in damaging it instead. But that made no sense if you looked at it as a possession? It seemed more like the spirit of the black king already inhabited his body and not transferred from an outside source. It did not make any sense to him. It was confusing.

Damn why did all the knowledge that came with the black king have to vanish as well leaving terms and a horrible recollection of how quickly the "current" Negi had fallen into line with the powerful personality? He was sure within its depths there would exist an explanation to what the hell was going on. There were too many mysteries being bred by questions that had answers that made no sense.

"It means in short I was the victim of a failed possession at some point," Negi clarified. "Can I leave now?"

"We've been instructed to take you to the dean to be debriefed," Misora said, "We are to be your escorts after you get changed in the locker room. I was told to tell you that we would meet your family plus someone from the Shinmei-ryu and Konoka-chan is going to be there to help you re-enact what happened."

"Konoka… Is going to be there?" Negi asked. He was treated to a montage of a urine soaked terrified girl who had made her last words his name. She had begged for her life in that one word and if he were capable of it Negi was sure he would be sick but the nausea was there to remind him.

"They are all there to debrief you on what happened in that rift. Konoka-chan is barely coherent and they had to rip it from her memory and watch it."

Konoka was coherent? Why use such a fancy word… It was too polite a word for this situation. You only used polite formal words when something bad happened? Like that movie he had seen where the dead soldier's commanding officer went to see the wife and kids and explained as politely as possible the bad news.

"Has she told you exactly about what happened?" Negi asked carefully. If the truth was told it was amazing that Misora wasn't in here with her staff to protect her or her artefact ready to make her escape with her master.

"She asked me to tell you the moment you woke up that she forgave you. Asuna-chan and Nekane-sensei explained to the MDF general forces about the power that sleeps within you. She claimed it was called the stigma of the black king?"

Negi stumbled from the astonishment and shame. Cocone caught him but he was like jelly and the poor girl was pumping magic into her limbs to keep him from toppling over with her. She held him like a tree about to fall on her. It would have been funny if this guilty sense of relief overcame him.

"How can she forgive me?" Negi whispered. The other older girl caught his other arm and walked him to his hospital bed, absentmindedly whispering a command to the cell to remove the vomit. It shimmered as the matter reconfiguration spell turned it into fresh oxygen. "I tried to kill her Misora-chan."

The girl stiffened at his confession but retained her warm smile. It seemed that the MDF forces had some of the battle left out of their reports. "But she forgave you."

His answer was the sign that he was capable of guilt. "I do not deserve it. I can't face her knowing she forgave that monster that lives in me. I cannot bare it. She can't just forgive me! I…I…I…" He started to stutter as the weight of what he had done punched him when was down and out. Kotaro his best friend was nearly killed, Konoka sweet best friend Konoka, the little maiden with shinmei ryu powers that seamlessly integrated her entire life around his oba-chan and himself with ease when they were children was forgiving him.

The denial wasn't working anymore. Negi was being made to face up to his actions. He had almost committed murder. He had felt pleasure at Kotaro dying in a pool of his own blood at his feet.

Forgiving him for attempting to murder her in a blaze of hellfire! How dare she forgive him? His anger grew, sorrow and all the other potent ambivalent volatile emotions that swelled up inside him. It let out his hidden fears of why his memory loss was covered up. What did it hide? This power he unleashed from removing this choker seal?

Who was in on this conspiracy? Did they let him not know on purpose about his powers? Did they fear him? Something important related to the black king was missing. And he didn't even know if this was the real Negi on display right here.

Negi got up despite the protests of both his body and his companions and made for the door. He had to escape from this place, from this city and this country if he could muster it. The nexus door to Mundus Magicus was here even if it wasn't used anymore. He hobbled through the cramps, the aches in his shoulder desperate to get away from her or hell anyone his darker side might hurt.

He barely crossed the threshold of the door and up the flight of agonising stairs to a large ante chamber containing a series of lockers and another set of spiral stairs newer than the ancient walls that led to the surface. His breathing was starting to quicken as a panic attack set in. He needed to go now. The mage felt so enclosed, so frightened and it was all about Konoka, Kotaro and who or the people responsible for sealing up some large part of his memory.

It was too much. He chose the coward's way out and transformed his shadow into a convincing pair of long black pants and sleeveless shirt. He added a thin layer of shadow to darken his hair and then teleported into the pool of black energy his body made above the pale light that lit the room.

XreviewX

Sorry for the late update: Had writers block. Imagine both Negima fics I do to be slow burners in terms of an update!

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